DR ERNEST SIMELA

Organic Food and Poverty

I am always amused when I go to a supermarket and see that products labelled “organic” are more expensive than regular products. In my book “ Struggle to the top of the Mountain” I write about the fact that I grew up in the arid reservations of Southern Rhodesia(present day Zimbabwe). I grew up among peasant farmers who tilled the land by hand because they could not afford tractors and all the fancy agricultural equipment used by big commercial farmers. They could not afford the fertilizers and all the synthetic products used to “improve” the quality of farm products. Incidentally most people in that part of the world still work the land by hand. They barely produce enough food to eat.
If I understand it correctly, “organic food is that which is produced without the use of synthetic chemicals, irradiation, growth hormones and all that good stuff”. These are things that help farmers to get their products to the market faster. The peasant farmers where I grew up were too poor to afford any of these products. So they produced their food using all the natural things available to them. The cattle, goats and sheep grazed in the unspoiled pastures available to the community. They ate wild grass that had never been touched by any chemical except whatever nature put out there. They drank water from rivers that were as far from any development as you can get. Whatever sipped into the water was whatever came from the forests and surrounding mountains. We ate meat and drank milk from these cows. These products were as organic as anything can be.
The cattle, goats, sheep and donkeys were kept in the kraal at night. Here they produced manure overtime. It was this manure that was used to fertilize the fields. There was no irrigation system. The crops were watered entirely by rain water. So there was no chance that harmful chemicals could be introduced into the food chain. Those that could afford chickens kept them cage-free and free range. They fed them corn that was produced in the fields free of chemicals. The free range chicken produced eggs that were as natural as how nature intended them to be. These were the wholesome organic eggs that should have been sitting on the shelves of supermarkets.
And so it was that out of poverty the peasant farmers of my childhood years produced “wholesome organic food” without knowing it. Over the years those that have become successful have introduced fertilizers and pesticides into their fields. Their chickens are treated with antibiotics to keep them healthy. These chemicals sip into the soil and drinking water and end up in our bodies. What a price to pay for progress!
Ernest D. Simela,M.D.